
Gass r. . I ■■* 



Book 



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5SjU*'^ i 1K €^u m mrm -'f^^VteJl 




SIGNS OF THE 






TIMES 






s» 






A Thrilling and 






Emotional Re- 






citalof the Op- 






pression of the 
" Toiling Masses 
of Humanity," 
from the Build- 






ing of the Pyra- 
mids of Egypt 
to the Present 






By W. T. MINTON 






*&> 






Published by L. H. Jenkins 
Edition Book Manufacturer 
Richmond, - - Virginia 






> 






By transf-r 
The White House 
March 3rd, 1913 



J- 
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PREFACE 

In attempting to write the "Signs of the 

Times" I have consulted and compiled the 

work from the records of the best known 

authors, endeavoring to render true, impartial 

facts concerning the oppression of the toiling 

masses of humanity, and the results of such 

abuse, at different periods- of time in Egypt, 

England, France, Germany; Italy, Russia, 

Persia, and the United States. In this digest 

many truths have been unearthed throwing 

light on the servile state in which the people 

have been held which were only recently 

brought to light. The people only can solve 

this stupendous problem. 

W. T. Minton. 



Signs of the Times 



CHAPTER I 



EQUAL RIGHTS REFORM ABUSES AND DESTROY 

PRIVILEGES THE STRIKE AND LOCKOUT 

If a man has a right to liberty, or self-gov- 
ernment, he has it because of his being a man, 
and every other man has the same right for 
the same reason; and the whole structure of 
human right falls if it be admitted that this 
or that man has greater rights than another 
man for any conceivable reason whatsoever. 
The privileged few who are assuming rights 
which do not belong to them remind us of the 
old tale of the serpent that was warmed to 
life in the bosom of the peasant. The man- 
hood of this generation will deliver a stagger- 
ing blow to this class, who are making a car- 
cass of our resources that they may continue 



6 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

to feed. Neither time nor tradition will lend 
any prestige to such men as are now in control 
of the financial affairs of this Commonwealth. 
Such usurpation of the people's rights, and 
such decrees as are being enforced by the 
means of combinations of wealth, provoke 
more astonishment than indignation, and men 
begin to wonder whether such acts, in defiance 
of law and justice, are not performed by 
reason of the actors being drunk with success 
and blind to the fact that the people are en- 
titled to the benefits of a Constitutional Gov- 
ernment. Party names signify but little. Our 
first object is to reform abuses and destroy 
privileges. But when it is plain that the party 
in power has neither the firmness to refuse 
what it does not wish to grant, nor good faith 
to grant what its weakness leads it to prom- 
ise, it is evident that such a party cannot long 
rule in the United States. In such a case, the 
question is to ensure the perpetual removal of 
such a party, and we know the only means for 
so doing is to transfer the administration to 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 7 

another party. Public interests have become 
mere commodities of trucking, trade and com- 
merce. Justice and reason have been ignored, 
and even the Constitution has become a dream 
of visionaries. I foresee that fortune will not 
always follow our present masters, and the 
more they enslave us the more terrible will be 
the reaction when it comes. Sordid souls, 
corrupted by base love of gain, they must soon 
behold the gulf that now gapes at their feet. 
The people are determined to do away with 
legislation solely for the benefit of aristocrats, 
plutocrats, trusts and combines. For a long 
period during the mediaeval centuries and sub- 
sequent centuries, industry existed in a stable 
condition, or in one whose changes were few, 
and none of them revolutionary. Manufac- 
ture was in a large sense individual. Em- 
ployees worked for the master with an inde- 
pendence that no longer exists. When we go 
back into the past centuries it is to find another 
world of labor radically different from that 
which surrounds us to-day. A new condition 



8 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

of industrial affairs has come, and the indus- 
trial class is not prepared to meet it. Every- 
where the employers are supreme and the men 
are at their mercy. The weapon of defence is 
the strike, and the reverse of this is the lock- 
out. As population increases and labor asso- 
ciations grow stronger, the present mode of 
adjustment between labor and capital will be 
attended with bloodshed and destruction. And 
that the difficulty will ever be settled in this 
way cannot be expected. Employers must re- 
place violent measures by peaceful arbitration, 
in agreeing to share a portion of their profits 
with their laborers. In Great Britain, where 
the workmen control the situation more fully 
than in any other country, workmen act as 
though they were partners in the business, and 
have their own interests to serve. They do 
more and better work, increasing the profit to 
cover their share of the proceeds, leaving that 
of their employers undiminished. The result 
is that strikes and lockouts have almost ceased 
to exist and profit-sharing full of promise. In 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 9 

France, profit-sharing has made great prog- 
ress, as it has also in Germany, Austria, and 
Denmark. Similar institutions may solve the 
labor problem in every civilized country. 
Profit-sharing in many large stores and fac- 
tories has been introduced in the United 
States, but with little progress. An economic 
situation is now at hand in this country which 
must be settled in some way. It is not yet 
clear just how the brake will be applied. It 
is hard to prevent capital from pooling its 
forces, and legislation may fail to provide 
means by which the root of the disease can 
be reached. But the cure is sure to come. 
The class of employers being reduced to a few 
very rich men, absorbing the profits of in- 
dustry and holding the remainder of the com- 
munity in a condition of bonded slavery, has 
become unpleasant and intolerable. By reason 
of the vast improvement in machinery, a lab- 
orer can now often produce fifty times as 
much as formerly, and sometimes a hundred 
times as much. The skilled laborer is en- 



io SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

titled to a fair share of this increased product. 
But the beneficiaries are ten thousand multi- 
millionaires, while there are eighty million on 
the other side. This state of affairs will exist 
no longer than is required to convince the 
public of the best way to destroy the system 
without injury to the established rights of 
property and other conditional guarantees. A 
free country is one where public opinion is 
supreme and the will of the majority is duly 
executed. 



CHAPTER II 

GREATEST GOOD TO GREATEST NUMBER CON- 
TRAST OF THE WEALTHY AND THE 
LABORER IMPENDING REVOLUTION 

The history of man has been one con- 
tinual struggle to obtain control of the law- 
making power. Whatever person, or party, 
could obtain the mastery has imposed their 
will upon the weaker, making the labors and 
toil of the latter contribute to the ease and 
comfort of those who made the law. The 
law at any given time is the record of what 
the stronger have decreed in their own inter- 
est. The greatest good to the greatest number 
is the foundation principle of a republic. In 
the dawn of history brute force, backed by 
an army paid out of the plunder of the un- 
fortunate, kept the many under subjection, and 
the army was aided by the ministers of super- 
stition, whom were paid in like manner. In 



12 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

later times the higher class forced the despot 
to share the wealth produced by the masses, . 
and became hereditary nobles. From one 
epoch to another the mass of toilers have 
groaned beneath their burdens. Then came 
our own movement more than a century ago 
to remove king, nobles, State, church, and 
special privileges, after which our ancestors 
thought they were free. But in the opening 
of the present century humanity has found 
that a few are appropriating to themselves the 
wealth created by the many. Let us contrast 
the present with antiquity and note the differ- 
ence in the small pay of the toiler. On the 
banks of the Nile in Africa stand the Pyra- 
mids of Egypt. Records from the old historian 
Diodorus, which have recently come to light, 
show that to build one of those pyramids 
cost the labor of 360,000 men twenty years, 
and that these men toiled under the lash with 
no return for their work save barely enough 
bread and onions to keep them alive. When 
the work was done it was only a tomb to 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 13 

gratify the vanity of some inhuman king. The 
palace of Versailles in France cost the lives 
of another 100,000 men to minister to the 
vanity of some later tyrant. On the river 
Nile another work was not long ago com- 
pleted. It is a great dam which bars the rush- 
ing waters from their downward course to- 
wards the sea, and preserves them to be led 
by irrigating ditches to fructify the soil and 
add millions of acres to be tilled by the hus- 
bandmen. It is not an idle tomb nor imperial 
palace only to gratify the vanity of some 
ruler. No lash was swung over the backs of 
the laborers ; they were better fed and received 
their modest wages in due season. But British 
soldiers took and held Egypt, and British mil- 
lionaires receive dividends on Egyptian bonds, 
bought at a discount, and the laborer is left the 
barest necessaries of life. The great dam in- 
creases the available territory, and the number 
of laborers who may toil for their masters. 
The tribute is collected with more humanity 
and decency, and modern intelligence has sup- 



H SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

plied the means by which the laborer may 
create greater wealth. But the net profit 
goes to the British bondholder. His pet vanity 
happens not to be a pile of rock in the desert 
as a tomb, but it is something, and the nation's 
labor collected and brought to him by the Brit- 
ish Government will be spent to gratify some 
other insensate vanity. The workman of the 
Nile does not share in the profits of his labor 
but little more to-day than he did fifty cen- 
turies ago. Countless thousands in our re- 
public to-day are asking how long before they 
may be permitted to enjoy a fair share of the 
product of their labor. When they look upon 
a million dollars a year salary to a Steel Trust 
president and a hundred thousand dollar sal- 
ary to many others, and see the magnificent 
palaces, the splendid steel yachts and luxuries 
of countless wealth, and then turn to their 
own squalid surroundings, they wonder at the 
present distribution of the profits of their 
labor. These men are not Egyptian fellaheen, 
and when they demand they must be heard. 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 15 

There is no higher power in this land than the 
will of the people, and it is wisdom to aid in 
the solution of this great problem. It is evi- 
dent that the industrial country is now in the 
throes of a revolution, and that the cause must 
be adjusted either by warring factions or by 
peaceful arbitration. It has never been the 
accumulation of wealth that has caused men 
to decay. The increase of wealth should bring 
development and happiness. But the unequal 
distribution, and its accumulation in the hands 
of a few, has brought down empires and de- 
stroyed nations. The Persians increased in 
wealth and developed their great conquered 
territories. But when by the law-making 
power wealth was permitted to accumulate in 
the hands of a few noblemen, 30,000 Greeks, 
under Alexander, doubled up the vast empire 
of Persia like a paper bag. When the Roman 
peace brooded over the Mediterranean coun- 
tries wealth multiplied. But afterwards, when 
the accumulation passed into the hands of a 
few, the number of people decreased till the 



16 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

barbarians of the frozen North burst through 
the depleted lines of the Roman legions, swept 
over the vast tracts of depopulated country, 
and laid the civilization of a thousand years 
beneath the dust. Cliny, in his records, tersely 
tells us that "Great estates destroyed Italy." 
Out of the wreck of the once famous "Roman 
Empire" rose new kingdoms, dukedoms, and 
countships. The leaders took the lands as 
hereditary nobles, placed their subjects thereon 
as tenants, those whom they had conquered 
as serfs, and called in the aid of religion by 
its influence over the minds of men the terror 
which carnal weapons had for their bodies. 



CHAPTER III 

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION HOW KING 

CHARLES LOST HIS HEAD EARNINGS 

OF GREAT CORPORATIONS DISREGARD THE 

LAW 

Again and again the subject masses un- 
easily moved beneath their burden of king, 
knight, and priest. In one blinding light flashed 
the French Revolution. It was the retribution 
of a thousand years of countless wrongs and 
oppression. In 1793 a few thousand heads fell 
beneath the guillotine, but the fact remains 
that aristocratic writers made the most of it, 
for their aristocratic readers, and that there 
were four times as many unjustly put to- death 
in any one year of the preceding century as 
lost their lives by the knife of the guillotine. 
The permanent reforms brought about by that 
great upheaval have affected the whole world. 
Mankind would still be on a far lower level if 



18 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

the "French Revolution" had not occurred. 
Napoleon Bonaparte, the greatest soldier of 
the modern world, climbed to power over the 
shoulders of the armies the republic had cre- 
ated. In England in 1265 a struggle between 
the people and nobility broke out, and Charles 
I., not knowing how to yield, lost his head. 
Now neither army nor banded sovereigns dis- 
pute the popular will of the people in England. 
And the demands of the people are now heard 
and granted; also in France. In 1776 we 
resolved to abolish all special privileges and all 
government in the interest of the few, and put 
the government in the hands of the people. 
Our example moved the French people of 
thought and accelerated the French Revolu- 
tion. In 1832 the monarchy of the English 
was saved in form only, the abdication of the 
nobility and gentry being forced in favor of 
government by the people. Since then Eng- 
land has been, in all but name, a republic. 
Throughout the civilized world all kings now 
hold their positions only by suffrage, save in 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 19 

Russia, where the government is held in place 
by the army, with a powerless czar and a rest- 
less people. The movement of the people in 
every enlightened country demonstrates their 
determination to have a larger share of the 
wealth created by their labor. Simultaneously 
with this world-wide movement we see the 
reactionary movement to aggregate all the 
wealth in the hands of a few multi-millionaires. 
The earnings of the United States Steel Com- 
pany, the Standard Oil Company, the Western 
Union, and the American Tobacco Company 
last year, as reported by themselves, were half 
of the total increase of wealth in the whole 
country. Every man is entitled to the advan- 
tages given him by his superior diligence and 
ability, and should in proportion share in the 
profits of the products of his good work. But 
every one knows that the one hundred million 
of Morgan, the two hundred million of Car- 
negie, and the four hundred million of Rocke- 
feller have not been obtained in that way, but 
by methods which have stripped countless thou- 



io SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

sands of their fair share of this annual wealth. 
Modern machinery has enabled us to far sur- 
pass all preceding ages in the creation of 
wealth, but we are suffering from Economic 
Indigestion in the most aggravated form. 
Whenever the body politic has suffered from 
such ills, and relief did not follow, the final 
result was political convulsion and revolution. 
Trusts are illegal, and their officers indictable, 
but not in a single instance has a Trust been 
broken up by the enforcement of the statute. 
This shows that while the popular will has 
forced its expression by Congress and the 
State legislature, that there exists a power 
stronger than the law. There must have been 
tremendous pressure upon judge and jury to 
prevent prosecution and conviction all these 
years. The Trusts and great corporations 
alone are privileged to disregard the law. The 
mere formation of great corporations is no 
ground for complaint. Great aggregations are 
due to the natural tendency of the age. But 
when they seek to secure still larger returns 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 21 

by forcing competition out, to reduce prices of 
the producers of raw material and to raise 
prices to the consumer, they place their hands 
upon the throat of the people and gather larger 
revenue than government. Plain as is the 
Federal statute in such cases, this country has 
yet to know of any serious attempt to enforce 
it. We know that it was shown in a legal 
trial that a pipe line was forced out of busi- 
ness by a greater railroad system by making 
the price for the transportation of Standard 
Oil so low that the pipe line could not make 
enough by transporting Standard Oil to pay 
for the axle grease on its car wheels. Then 
when the pipe line was down and out, prices 
for the transportation of Standard Oil were 
put back to their former price. The American 
Tobacco Company has systematically pursued 
the same course. The great Trusts are in simi- 
lar ways confiscating the property of others, 
destroying competition, and the opportunity 
for individual livelihood. Still they are al- 
lowed to go on, growing more defiant every 



22 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

day. In this year of 191 2 the Federal grand 
jury found true bills against eight of the lead- 
ing beef barons of the United States, and the 
government authorities ordered the defendants 
to Chicago for trial. The farce went on for 
weeks, ending with an express charge to the 
packed jury by the presiding judge in the case 
"that in order to convict, you must find that 
these defendants are personally responsible 
for what their firms have done." The release 
of these law-breakers was a foregone conclu- 
sion, and the result was their acquittal, with a 
big cost heaped upon the helpless people. The 
acquittal of these beef barons licensed them to 
rob the people still more, and in less than 
thirty days they put the price of meats up two 
cents per pound. The railroads are the great- 
est of all Trusts, and when Virginia was seek- 
ing to compel a railroad which « runs through 
that State and North Carolina to charge lower 
rates, its head officials filed affidavits that the 
road was worth $40,000 per mile, and en- 
titled to interest on that sum. In North Caro- 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 23 

Una, when the same road was assessed a little 
over $12,000 per mile for taxation, its officials 
got an injunction from a Federal judge on 
the ground that this was more than its value. 
These are only a few of the long list of 
methods by which the Trusts maintain their 
supremacy over the law. The catalogue of 
injustices which the masses suffer at the hands 
of great aggregations of wealth is long. An- 
other method of lawless wealth is to procure 
the nomination to office by each political party 
of those subservient to the views of the money 
power. This is cheaper and safer than back- 
ing either party, and then whichever side tri- 
umphs, the Trusts have friends in office. Their 
greatest stronghold is in these men in office, 
who owe their positions to the powerful in- 
fluence of organized wealth, or whose servility 
has been secured, and the powerful lobby 
which they maintain at Washington and at 
every State Capital. Their influence in the 
lobby where the office is appointive has been 
great. From Aristotle down it has been con- 



24 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

ceded that great inequalities of wealth have 
been dangerous to republics. But, instead of 
government control of Trusts, we are nearer 
Trust control of government. In this country 
stockholders of the Western Union have never 
paid in but $545,000 in cash, while it is capi- 
talized at $120,000,000, besides having paid 
dividends all these years. The Paper Trust 
levies annually two and one-half million dol- 
lars on the press by excessive prices for blank 
paper, but it is paid to* Trust magnates, and 
not a whimper is heard. We are the same 
people who resisted a stamp act on paper be- 
cause not levied by our consent. The people 
would be opposed to government ownership 
if the former state of things could be returned, 
but the Trusts and great corporations have 
demonstrated that this cannot be done. 



CHAPTER IV 

POWERS OF THE PEOPLE TRUE MEN AND ABLE 

LEADERS WANTED PLUNDERINGS OF 

BOSSES AND GRAFTERS READJUSTMENT 

OF LAWS 

The people are yet all powerful, and when 
they once realize the true condition of the af- 
fairs now surrounding them and demand relief 
from the masters, it must be granted. When 
the American people become aroused and de- 
mand, there is no power beneath the skies 
to refuse. Injunctions and bayonets can move 
only by their permission, and in enforcement 
of their will. The people will change a pluto- 
cratic Senate and a life-tenure judiciary into 
officials chosen by themselves, representing 
their interests, and removal at their will. The 
people are impelled by vicious springs of 
action, no motives being supplied but wealth 
and glory. The machine bosses are becoming 



26 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

tyrants a hundred times more ruthless than 
were the feudal kings of Europe whom were 
struck from their thrones ages ago. They 
must soon encounter hosts animated by the 
noblest love of country and freedom. Every- 
where throughout the land the educated, the 
enlightened, the broad and liberal minds, see 
the cause of reform identified with the eman- 
cipation from the domination of the new 
rulers, and their rights as citizens dependent 
on their national rights. The people are not 
creatures of the Constitution, but the Constitu- 
tion was created at their hands. They have 
changed it, and will change it again at their 
sovereign will. They are at this time seeking 
true men and able leaders to express their 
views. The breed of such men is not yet ex- 
hausted, and will be found. A great man is 
but the highest expression of the will and in- 
telligence of the people among whom he lives. 
In 1776, if our ancestors had not thought and 
felt like Washington and Jefferson thought 
and felt, these great men would not have been 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 27 

put forward at the critical moment, to lead the 
greatest movement of the ages. 

The struggle now at hand in this country is 
embittered by the action of the Trusts and 
the plundering rule of the bosses and grafters. 
A readjustment of organic law to changed and 
existing conditons must come to- every nation. 
It is as inevitable as the precession of the 
annual equinoxes. It may not come to our 
country at once, but the sooner it does come 
the better it will be for all. For just behind 
the scene awaits in grim expectancy, and men- 
acing, a complete rending of the social strata. 
God save our country from internicine strife 
by removing the dangers by which it is men- 
aced. Its present state of affairs cannot long 
continue in peace. On the one side there is a 
titanic struggle by the money powers to stem 
the tide of popular government that is sweep- 
ing higher around the world. On the other 
side it is a deseprate struggle of the masses 
for greater economic opportunities through 
control of the machinery of the government. 



28 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

And millions of American people whom have 
been continually misled by party tags and their 
wills stifled by a power stronger than the gov- 
ernment are now demanding relief, regardless 
of political parties or party affiliations. The 
hour has struck when the voice of the toiling 
millions must be heard and their rights 
granted. They will support the party that 
stands for right, support it while it is right, 
and part with it when it goes wrong. The 
parties may change positions, but the people 
will not. They will continue to stand exactly 
where they are. The time has passed for 
leaders to lay stress upon their fears of ty- 
ranny of the majority to shape their own 
destinies, and to control the public officials 
who should be the servants and not the masters 
of the people. The masses will not. longer 
continue to permit evil, whether political or 
industrial, to sit in high places and exalt the 
horn of unrighteousness. They are not advo- 
cating discontent and class hatred, but dis- 
content with industrial tyranny and oppression 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 29 

and with any failure of legislator or judge to 
see that the rights of the wage-worker and pro- 
ducer are properly safeguarded. There is not 
only objection to the action of legislator and 
judge, but to the Chief Justices themselves, 
when it is found by their actions that they are 
betraying the interests of the people. And to 
all men, regardless of position, who interpret 
the Constitution in such fashion as to show 
that they do not believe in its preamble, where 
it explicitly states that it has been created to 
bring about justice and to promote the general 
welfare. The bosses who have been govern- 
ing by means of corruption, suppressing the 
rights of self-government and in the interests 
of special privilege, must be driven from public 
life. There is no class in this country to- hate, 
except financial and political crooks. But they 
will be cordially hated more and more, until 
they cease to be crooked, or are deprived of 
their power to do damage to the rest of us. 
This is no factional fight or political contest, 
but a fight to the death for the fundamental 



30 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

rights of every good citizen, without regard to 
politics, throughout the United States. The 
Constitution was conceived by the representa- 
tives of the people, and adopted by the people, 
so that the people themselves could, as set 
forth in the preamble of the Constitution, 
better obtain justice for themselves and better 
promote the good of others. The Constitu- 
tion is of the plain people. They fought and 
died for it, live under it, will defend it, and 
it is for them ultimately to interpret it. They 
won it, and ordained it, to secure to themselves 
and their children the blessings of liberty, and 
they know what it means, and when it is vio- 
lated. If the people are wise enough to make 
their Constitution, they are wise enough to 
protect it. They paid the price for it, and it is 
safer in the hands of those from whom it 
sprung. Its enemies, whom have inverted its 
true meaning by the refinement of deceptive 
logic and twisted it away from being an in- 
strument for the protection of the people into 
one to keep from them the means of remedy- 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 31 

ing the evils of which they complain, are the 
lieutenants of bosses of special interests. The 
Federal Government will be empowered 
through some source to control that class of 
corporations engaged in interstate commerce 
having power and opportunity to effect mo- 
nopolies, thereby destroying competition and 
forcing individual dependency. The great in- 
crease of wealth, the growth of industries, the 
discovery and development of our great natu- 
ral resources, and the transformation of our 
people from illiteracy and isolation to one of 
an enlightened world power has brought about 
such changed conditions of life and habits that 
we have outgrown many of the old forms of 
law. The cry has gone forth that "through 
this cycle of change and growth in other re- 
spects, the law has stood like the noon of 
Joshua at Ajalon." 



CHAPTER V 

REFORMS MUST COME WHAT THE POOR MAN'S 

COFFEE COSTS HIM 

We may as well write it down; there are 
going to be reforms. We must keep abreast 
of the times and heed the demands of the 
people. Open the door of the altar that they 
who have grievances may be heard, and right 
and justice done. The founders of our lib- 
erties who wrested from the army of kings our 
rights and established our freedom upon a 
firm foundation were sure that the guarantee 
of a continuance of these and of the pursu- 
ance of happiness was a fair and impartial 
administration of the law. Justice knows no 
litigant, but in impartial scales weighs each 
grievance and pronounces judgment as the 
scales may indicate. Impatiently the people 
still await the needed reforms of law and a 
lessening of the miscarriages of justice. It 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 33 

has recently developed that the coffee drinkers 
of the United States are now in the grip of the 
most burdensome monopoly ever laid upon 
them. They are forced to pay tribute to a 
combination of American bankers and the gov- 
ernment of Brazil, amounting to millions of 
dollars annually. This combination is able to 
hold coffee in storage places until there is an 
apparent scarcity and prices go up with a 
bound, then unload its supply when it has 
forced up the price. Finally the price of coffee 
keeps going up, and the millions of coffee con- 
sumers in the country have to pay heavy 
tribute to the coffee magnates. Relief must 
come, or the monopoly will grow richer and 
more powerful while the coffee drinkers every- 
where will continue to pay more and more 
tribute to the Trust. The wholesale price of 
Brazilian coffee is more than double w T hat it 
w r as four years ago. And as Brazil furnishes 
85 per cent, of the world's supply of coffee, we 
have to use Brazilian coffee or go without. 
Like the other numerous Trusts of this coun- 



34 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

try, it is robbery pure and simple, sapping the 
life blood of the people, making the poor man 
poorer, and putting millions of dollars more 
into the pockets of the magnates. Justice is 
not blind. Every wrong done the helpless 
toilers of this country will correlate itself into 
a force chastising the wrongdoers. God speed 
the day when the yoke of galling servitude can 
be removed. The battles will wax hotter be- 
tween Democracy and plutocracy, the people 
and the bosses, until one or the other is finally 
overthrown. 



CHAPTER VI 

POLITICAL REVOLUTION STARTED NOT A PARTI- 
SAN BUT A MORAL ISSUE JUSTICE FOR 

ALL IN THE INTEREST OF ALL 

The national conventions of 191 2 fully 
demonstrated the fact that the political 
revolution had begun. The conventions 
loomed bigger than the fate of any individual 
or the destiny of any party. The flag of revolt 
was raised and the new era was ushered in 
with terrific battles for control that was a 
trumpet-call to the seven thousand of Israel 
who had not bowed the knee to Baal to stand 
by us. For the first time in our history the 
issue was squarely drawn between the reaction- 
ary and progressive combinations and the 
people. It was a struggle in which the foun- 
dations of the old parties were shaken from 
center to circumference, and the meaningless 
party tags were discarded as worthless labels. 



36 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

These conventions gave the common people 
who will be the court of last appeal in this 
country, their first chance to enroll themselves 
under true emblems that mean something real 
and that stand for convictions and principles. 
It was an inevitable realignment that stripped 
American politics of shams and pretenses. The 
raising of the banners of a new political era in 
these national conventions was the most sig- 
nificant fact of the great battles waged. A 
new chapter in America begun with June, 
191 2. The eyes of the world then turned 
upon the people, whose right to govern them- 
selves w^ent on trial before a world jury. This 
was the greatest progressive movement in the 
history of America. The people are demand- 
ing the great fundamental rights upon which 
all successful free government must be based. 
It is not a partisan issue, but a great moral 
one. They are not fighting for party rights, 
but they are engaged in a battle against sin- 
ister influences of money privilege, for every 
decent American, whatsoever his party may 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 37 

be. The principles for which they stand are 
as vital for one section of the country as they 
are for another, and appeal to all honest, pa- 
triotic Americans. They are warring for a 
free hand to work in efficient fashion for true 
justice, and against privilege of every form. 
It is the eternal struggle between the two prin- 
ciples — right and wrong — throughout the land. 
By their very nature these men are bound to 
battle for the truth and the right. In them 
burns righteousness like a flaming fire, and 
they spurn lives of selfish ease and slothful 
self-indulgence. They do not address thenir 
selves only to the cultured and exclusive few ; 
they know well that conscience is not the privi- 
lege merely of the men of wealth and cultiva- 
tion. But they call upon men of character, 
generosity, unselfishness and courage in this 
world-battle for equal rights. They ask that 
those of our people to whom fate has been 
kind shall remember the less fortunate who 
work wearily beside them in the strain and 
stress of our eager modern life. They stand 



38 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

for the cause of the uplift of humanity and 
the betterment of mankind, and are pledged 
to eternal war against wrong, whether by the 
few or by the many, by a plutocracy or by a 
mob. Their cause is the cause of justice for 
all, and in the interest of all. The present con- 
test is but a phase of the larger struggle which 
must come, without immediate relief for the 
masses. The fight will go on till the victory is 
won. We are facing a crisis in the history of 
a nation here in America where the people 
have a continent on which to work out their 
destiny, and what they do will have a similar 
effect throughout the world. Nowhere else on 
the globe is there such a chance for the tri- 
umph on a gigantic scale for the cause of 
popular self-government. It will soon be 
proven that the people of this great republic 
can rule themselves, and thus ruling can gain 
liberty for others. The result of this great 
struggle is far too great to concern ourselves 
about any particular man or party. The pa- 
triots put far above their own interests the 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 39 

triumph of the high cause for which they 
battle. What happens to them is not of the 
slightest consequence, while they fight for the 
good of country and loved ones. It is far 
more honorable to fall in battle for a great 
cause than exist in bondage and shame. And 
they are fighting honorably for the loftiest of 
all causes — the cause of freedom. The result 
of the national conventions of 191 2 proved 
that America faced the gravest crisis of its 
life since i860. The battles of these conven- 
tions were to the last ditch for the control of 
the machinery of the government. It was a 
life and death struggle with the liberal against 
the conservative, the radical against the re- 
actionary, the progressive against the stand- 
patter; finally the awakened and aroused toil- 
ing people of this country against the bosses 
allied with big business everywhere. The pro- 
gressives battled under the militant influences 
of their leaders whom were as bold as they 
were able. It was no petty struggle to estab- 



40 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

lish and maintain these leaderships in these 
powerful conventions, and those who see only 
sordid, selfish fight for the aggrandisement of 
the leaders are blind as to the whole mighty 
sweep of the world-wide movement for real 
popular government. The progressives, who 
fought so desperately under their great gen- 
eral at Chicago are the same type of men and 
hold the same political beliefs and cleave to the 
same political ideals as the men who fearlessly 
followed their greatest of modern generals in 
his smashing charges to victory in Baltimore. 
In both conventions the fact was emphasized 
that the present chaos of existing conditions 
in American politics has eliminated meaning- 
less party tags. The tumult and clamor further 
emphasized the fact that the American nation 
is in the midst of a gigantic struggle for the 
realignment of policies upon real vital and 
progressive issues. The ground works upon 
which the people will build their future gov- 
ernment have been made strong and complete. 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 41 

America now expects every patriot to do his 
duty in this national battle. It is now impor- 
tant for every soldier to measure up to the 
expectations of the people. 



CHAPTER VII 

MACHINE METHODS NO LONGER EFFECTIVE 

DAYS OF THE FAVORED FEW DRAWING TO 
A CLOSE PROGRESSIVE GOVERNMENT 

This subject is a vital one, and is above par- 
tisan politics and mere office holding. The 
people have progressed to the place where 
there has opened a new era in politics, and sen- 
timentality and prejudice will no longer ob- 
scure abuse and error in government. The old 
machine methods of naming candidates and 
writing laws without regard for the desires of 
the masses will no longer be effective. The 
local political boss who has no higher ideal in 
politics than to dispense patronage will be as 
much out of place in this modern ' era as the 
wooden plow or first steam engine. Political 
parties are necessary, because in this way alone 
the people can act together when they respond 
to the demands of society for representative 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 43 

government. But political bosses are a thing 
of the past. Voters will no longer respond 
to mere party name and believe that under 
the present system that government derives its 
real powers from the consent of the gov- 
erned. But they will find a way to make one 
and execute it in a spirit of patriotism and 
service that succeeding generations will rise 
to call them blessed. The people now recog- 
nize that the powers of government and of 
wealth are concentrated in the hands of a fa- 
vored few, and that they now have a money 
oligarchy more burdensome to /imerica than 
is aristocracy to England. The contempla- 
tion of less than one hundred men controlling 
more than half of the wealth of this country 
by dishonest means under the law is a call to 
arms to every honest, patriotic citizen. The 
men who advocate stealing under the forms of 
law, if they and their friends are given a part 
of the loot, or who will run up the white flag 
in a fight for principle in order to hold or 
secure political office will have no place in the 



44 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

future progressive government. Out of this 
old practice of favoritism under the law has 
grown up kindred policies, such as subsidies, 
toleration of those who form trusts and com- 
mit robbery and receive benefits in campaign 
contributions from those who reap benefits of 
these policies. Such policies have received the 
stamp of condemnation by the masses, and 
must give place to intelligent and patriotic 
action for the general good. In 1 776 the ques- 
tion was political freedom — the right of a 
nation to govern itself, independent of a king. 
That fundamental issue was forever settled by 
bayonets. In i860 the question was the right 
to buy free labor at the cost of maintenance, 
as against the old system of chattel slavery; 
that shadow of the middle ages which lin- 
gered across the rising sun of capitalism. 
That issue was settled by powder and ball. 
In this year of 191 2 the question is, What 
part of the wealth created by the worker may 
he retain for his own use ? This issue must be 
settled in the coming battle of ballots. The old 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 45 

conservative parties have not only failed to 
make good their promise after election, but 
they have continually added burdens to the 
overburdened people. These new burdens 
serve to emphasize the necessity of a new 
political movement. The; "progressive move- 
ment" now circling the earth is the beacon 
light that points "outraged humanity" to the 
fruit of labor and land of freedom. Move- 
ment,, change, progress, is the law of life. 
When these cease with an individual or with 
a people there is death. 



CHAPTER VT1I 

AS PHYSICAL NATURE HAS CHANGED SO HAS 

MAN HONOR TO WHOM HONOR MASSES 

NOT CONTENT WITH THEIR PRESENT CON- 
DITION 

Scientists tell us "that this earth has eleven 
distinct motions." "The falling through 
space of the sun at the rate of 450,- 
000,000 miles a year with all its attendant 
planets." "The wild flight at the rate of 65,- 
000 miles per hour around the sun." "The 
revolution of the earth on its own axis at the 
rate of 1,000 miles per hour." "The motion 
around the polar star and seven other mo- 
tions." The flight of the earth while falling 
in the immensity of space turns with rapid 
speed. Not only the planet has great move- 
ments, but the land surface of the globe is as 
fluid and restless as the waves of the ocean. 
Mountain ranges now stand where once was 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 47 

the floor of the ocean, and the ocean rolls 
where once lay the pleasant land. What is true 
of the physical world is true of the history of 
man. Progress in a thousand ways has raised 
the standard of living and increased the com- 
forts of life. In all the professions and in 
every department of human activity there is 
change and progress. We have only reached 
our present stage of development by strenuous 
effort. And government is not an exception 
to all other rules. Many long years ago the tall 
shaft, hewn out of a single stone, which once 
stood on the banks of the Nile, the obelisk 
which still stands in the center of the piazza in 
front of the great Church of St. Peters was 
brought to Rome. The skillful engineers who 
were to raise it to the perpendicular, through 
some error in calculation, failed in their pur- 
pose. The great stone grandly, gracefully, im- 
pressively rose in the air, but when it lacked 
one or two inches of being in place it would 
go no further. It was necessary to lower the 
stone and the costly and historic work would 



48 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

probably have been dashed in pieces on the 
pavement. At this critical moment, when the 
engineers were in confusion, from the im- 
mense crowd suddenly a voice rang out, 
"Aqua a funi; aqua a funi!" — "Water to 
the rope; water to the rope!" In an instant 
a few buckets of water were dashed on the 
rope. By capillary attraction the water quickly 
mounted the entire length of the ropes. They 
tightened, and like the needle of the compass 
the great monolith trembled into place. Upon 
inquiry, it was learned that the voice was that 
of an humble sailor boy. The Pope sent 
for him and, inquiring what reward he de- 
sired, was told that he asked that his native 
village of Bordighera might be authorized to 
keep the anniversary of that day in perpetual 
memory as a festival. Empires and dynasties 
have passed like autumnal leaves raised aloft 
and whirled along by the winds of winter, but 
the annual anniversary at Bordighera still 
goes on. 

The theories which were laid down in 1776 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 49 

for the public welfare have been thwarted and 
defeated by hostile interests. The measures 
to overcome these defeats are now before the 
public and will secure popular approval when 
once understood. This physical, tangible world 
is on the move. The population, gradually 
emerging from barbarism to our present civili- 
zation and reaching for still greater heights, 
are moving on. The force of public opinion 
has won in Russia, Persia, Turkey, and China. 
The abolition of slavery in this and other 
countries and of serfdom in Russia are but 
parts of a world-wide improvement in the con- 
dition of the toilers everywhere, upon whom 
in the last analysis depend the continued exist- 
ence of the human race. With the diffusion of 
knowledge the importance of labor and the 
power in numbers, the masses in this country 
will not remain content with the small share 
allotted them, out of the results of their toil 
and their relative importance in government. 
No country can remain safe and prosperous in 
which the people are not extending their pow- 



50 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

ers, enlarging their privileges and incorporat- 
ing themselves with the functions of govern- 
ment. The people will ultimately win, and 
victory will sit on their banner with folded 
wings. 



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